Open Pollinated Land-race Moschata's

LongofNaples

Necked Butternut,Large

NeckedButternut,Medium

DickinsonBuckskinPumpkin

CheesePumpkin

SmallButternut

MediumButternut

LargeButternut

Summary

I grow my own variety of open pollinated butternut squash. It is an early season
land-race with tremendous
genetic diversity.
The seed produces necked squash, and butternuts, and pumpkins, and cheese squash
of lots of different sizes and shapes.

Benefits

Commercial varieties of butternut squash require
too long of a growing season and too warm of nights
to do well on my farm. I am selecting for early maturity
and high vitamin content.

My squash are a genetically diverse
population which increases the chances that during
adverse growing conditions or unexpected pest attacks
that at least some of the crop will thrive.

History

In 2009, my butternut harvest consisted of perhaps
5 fruits from an 80 foot long row. Because of the poor yield I decided to
conduct a breeding/selection program to find germplasm more suitable
to my garden. During the fall and winter
many dozens of varieties of Cucurbita moschata
were collected from the Internet, from my family, and from neighboring
farms. They included necked squash, and many kinds
of traditional butternuts, and long-of-naples, and seminole
pumpkins, and buckskin pumpkins, and dickinson field pumpkins,
and cheese pumpkins, and others.
The Long Island Seed Project
conributed significant genetic diversity.

In 2010 the seed was planted and allowed to openly cross pollinate.
Due to frost, the plot was harvested 88 days after sowing. Approximately
25% of the plants produced mature fruits and seeds. Many plants had not
even set immature fruits in that time though they may have contributed
some pollen.

In the 2011 growing season the seed was planted in patches
based on the size of the mother fruit: Small, medium, or extra large.
Selection criteria included oranger flesh, quicker maturity, and drier
flesh. In addition particular attention was paid to saving seeds from
plants that appear to be hybrids with other types, especially with
the goal of transferring the deep orange color of the Dickinson
pumpkin into butternut shaped squash. Several truckloads of butternut
squash were harvested. I think of the 3rd year of a selection/breeding
program as being magical. It's such a joy to see the desired phenotype
manifest itself in such abundance.

Future Plans

In the 2012 growing season, I intend to continue selecting by size
so that I end up with three populations: One that produces fruits
weighing less than two pounds, one that produces fruits weighing about
3 to 10 pounds, and one that can produce squash
weighing over 20 pounds. A diversity
of shapes will be maintained in each group, with a strong emphasis on
oranger flesh because I believe that more color equals more nutrition.
A fourth patch will be maintained as a hyrbrid swarm
crossing block.

Diversity

There is lots of diversity in my land-race. The photos at the top of the page
show some typical fruits. The scale is the
same for all photos.

Sharing

I am delighted to share
excess seed.
In some cases I may be
able to send seed from specific types of fruits.
I'm offering free butternut squash for
canning, drying, or freezing if you
can handle a lot of it all at once just
after the first hard frost and if you
don't mind if I keep the seed cavity.